Who Invented Beer?

There are two main theories about the first beer per se (a drink made of fermented cereals) The first theory argues in favor of an accident: cereals placed in a container would have started to sour after being exposed to rain, thus accidentally creating some very crude version of a craft ale.

Ale Before Bread?

This theory is not very popular among archaeologists. In 1995, a Canadian paleontologist decided to put this theory to the test by literally throwing cereal into a large pot in the open air and observing what happened. The beer was so disgusting that they decided to complete the experiment in three days. The consensus was: there’s no way a sane person could have drunk that beer.

Theory number 2 goes a step further. Since cereal seeds have defense mechanisms against predators, they would have been exceptionally bitter and probably toxic to the uninitiated. Consequently, those bold enough to try eating them would have scalded it in some kind of soup. There’s another name for that: brewing.

According to the most classic theory, beer came after bread. Scholars are debating this more and more. Firstly, there is evidence of brewing in Mesopotamia before agriculture. Secondly, the first cereals adopted by man were probably too unpalatable to make decent bread.

But was agriculture necessary for beer production? This was the question posed by Jonathan Sauer’s famous 1962 debate “Beer before bread”. The American botanist opined that the available cereals (mainly emmer and spelt) would not have provided enough nutrients to justify the effort invested in bread, but instead would have enabled nutritious beers to be created through yeast processing.

In other words: porridge was likely the first deliberate beer.

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